As of Jan. 4, Kosciusko County is in compliance with the Indiana state law that requires all of the county’s voting machines to be equipped with a Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), County Clerk Ann Torpy told the county commissioners Tuesday.
She and Chief Deputy Melissa Boggs brought to the commissioners a sample of the county’s new voting equipment.
“It’s not a machine, it’s just a case and VVPAT is located inside,” Torpy said. “... But we are in compliance now, and all of our vote centers will utilize these machines and have VVPAT fully available with paper ballots for voters to verify. We’re still using our voting machines, but it creates a paper trail for those voters that cast ballots.”
Commissioner Cary Groninger said a few of the pieces of equipment were tried out during the last election to make sure they worked “and we really liked how this came out.” On top of that, he said the state “pretty much funded the cost of this additional paper ballot trail.”
Torpy agreed, saying the county had no cost to them.
Commissioner Bob Conley asked, “Is there a paper ballot or just a paper receipt?”
Torpy said it’s a receipt. “It’s similar to a paper ballot, it’s just the voter doesn’t physically touch the paper ballot. It stores it securely into the case.”
“So they don’t tear it off and take it with them?” Conley asked. Torpy said no, it stays within the machine.
As he sits on the county election committee, Groninger later stated, “The process that we went through to select, to decide on these individual voting machines, we did interview or did demos of multiple different voting machines, and we really thought that this was the one that had checked all the boxes for us. So, it really was due diligence that went through that process. (I) just appreciate Ann and her team walking through and setting up all of that for us.”
Torpy said two-thirds of the state of Indiana use this voting system, and there are only two counties (Fulton and Elkhart counties) surrounding Kosciusko County that don’t.
After the commissioners meeting, Torpy said the VVPAT “prints the selections that the voter cast on the voter machine. They have the opportunity to review it, and then cast their vote. The ballot scrolls back into the machine secured away, so the next voter is not able to see that ballot. So it stores it, and then we have the ability to do a recount using the paper ballot and comparing them to what the machines have to what the paper ballots have, if a recount is necessary.”
She said it will make a recount easier and faster.
“There’s a QR Code after each ballot that’s cast, so there’s a machine that reads that QR Code, and the state works with Ball State. The program is called V-Stop, and what they do is they come in and do audits of that; they can get it within a certain margin of error, and having a paper ballot helps us with that - the guarantee that the vote cast report was accurate within 0%,” Torpy explained.
The equipment was used in 10% of the fall 2022 election and in all of the 2023 city elections, though there weren’t many election races in 2023.
After the election is over, Torpy said they have to keep the records stored in a secure manner for 22 months, according to state law.
If the state had not paid for the equipment, it would have cost the county about $2,000 for each of the 220 machines.
Torpy said, originally, there was a law back in 2016 that the county could use the voting machines without VVPAT until 2029. Then-Secretary of State Connie Lawson purchased the VVPATs with state funds to provide a percentage of them to each county. After the state law was changed to move the date up sooner from the 2029 deadline, then-Secretary of State Holly Sullivan secured funds from the government to purchase the equipment for all the counties that utilize the system.
All of the machines will be used in this year’s elections. Torpy said, as of Tuesday, there will be 22 voting centers in Kosciusko County but they are looking for a 23rd location in the area of the City-County Athletic Complex. Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion will be one of the voting centers this year.
Torpy also told the commissioners she needed permission to sign an agreement with DreamOn Studios to create videos for voters, funded by a state grant.
“We were approved a partial grant from the secretary of state, and they approved the part of our request to work with DreamOn Studios, a local studio company in Kosciusko County, to create videos for our voters to put on our website, our social media and advertisements and such,” she said.
She needed approval to sign the agreement, which was sent to her digitally so she wasn’t able to fully print it out in time for the commissioners’ meeting. The grant money from the secretary of state pays for the agreement.
The videos will inform people on how to register to vote, vote through the mail and the different ways voters can cast their votes.
Groninger said he though that was a great idea and he appreciated Torpy reaching out to find more people to get out and vote. He made a motion to approve Torpy’s request with the stipulation that county attorney Ed Ormsby review and approve the agreement. The motion was passed 3-0.
The cost of the videos with DreamOn Studios is expected to cost $20,000.